Many tourists are surprised to see that the day tour boats on Ha Long Bay (locals consider them hourly boats, because they are rented by the hour) are basically the same and not as beautiful as the overnight boats on the bay.
According to some cruise ship owners, the reason why the cruise ships are similar is because, since 2016, Quang Ninh province has decided that the cruise ships built to replace the old ones must be built according to 3 selected ship models. These are 3 ship models that have been selected, screened, and consulted with many professional units and cruise ship owners in Ha Long Bay.
Later, due to many opinions from ship owners, Quang Ninh province added some other designs. The above designs were all purchased by Quang Ninh Provincial People's Committee and provided to ship owners for free use.
However, according to some ship owners, most cruise ship owners still choose the first 3 models, of which only one is the most satisfactory, so the result is that... the new replacement ships are all the same.
Before 2016, the fleet of day tour boats on Ha Long Bay was very diverse in design because the boat owners were free to be creative. Therefore, Ha Long Bay was a colorful picture with hundreds of day tour boats.
With the decision to build according to a model, that picture is gradually lost, and because there is no more freedom to create, the cruise ships become more and more monotonous and rigid.
However, for accommodation ships or restaurant ships, ship owners are free to design and create according to their ideas and financial capabilities. Therefore, most of the above types of ships, each ship has a different design and architecture...
There are about 500 tourist boats in Ha Long Bay, of which about 170 are accommodation boats; the rest are basically day tour boats.
The number of cruise ships above is fixed, no more ships can be built because the number of ships operating in Ha Long Bay is too much, with excess capacity, and also based on UNESCO's recommendation to reduce the load on Ha Long Bay.
However, ship owners can replace old wooden-hulled ships with new steel-hulled ships. According to the Ha Long Tourist Boat Association, up to now, dozens of wooden daytime tourist boats have been replaced with iron-hulled ships, but all must follow the models prescribed by Quang Ninh province.
According to Quang Ninh’s own regulations, issued in 2016, the operating life of tourist boats in Ha Long Bay is 15 years for wooden boats and 25 years for steel-hulled tourist boats, while the general regulations nationwide are 20-25 years for wooden boats and 30-35 years for steel-hulled boats. At the time of issuance of the above regulations, there were about 70 tourist boats nearing the end of their operating life.
"There are still many day tour boats that are about to expire. If we have to rebuild them according to the above models, there is a risk that the entire bay will have hundreds of similar cruise boats," said a cruise boat owner in Ha Long Bay.
Some cruise ship owners believe that, not to mention the above models still have many different opinions about aesthetics, and even if they are beautiful, all of them are exactly the same, causing boredom. Meanwhile, the space and landscape of Ha Long Bay is so romantic and majestic, so there needs to be creativity and imagination in the design, so that cruise ships are not simply a means of transportation, but also a beautiful architectural work.
